Chapter 1888 Agricultural Development
Li Dou had already considered Li Bo's lack of relevant knowledge. After introducing the current situation of local agricultural development, he took the initiative to invite Li Bo to visit local farms and plantations during the next trip. In this way, we can have a more intuitive understanding of Kaohsiung's agricultural development.
Before going abroad this time, Li Bo, who had lived in the palace for a long time, would definitely not have had much interest in farming, let alone making a special trip to visit farmland farming. However, this trip really broadened Li Bo's horizons. As time went by, he gradually realized that the strength of a country was not just reflected in its military force. It was also very important to enable its citizens to live and work in peace and contentment, and have enough food and clothing. North Korea itself is an agricultural country and has little in common with Haihan in terms of military, trade, and finance. This stop in Kaohsiung allowed Li Bo to finally find a rare common ground between the two countries, and the threshold for learning in this area It seems that it is not as high as other fields, so he will naturally not refuse this timely invitation.
Like the Haihan Colony visited before, Kaohsiung also has a guest house with uniform service standards as an institution to receive Li Bo and his party. However, the guest house here has strong local characteristics. For example, most of the various wooden and rattan furniture indoors are produced locally, and the variety of fresh fruits provided is more abundant than the places Li Mu has been to before. Some of the accessories in the house even come from local indigenous tribes, and the primitive atmosphere exuded by rough handicrafts is quite unique.
Li Bo also noticed that not all the service staff at the Kaohsiung Guest House were Haihan people. Many of them were local indigenous people who did not speak Chinese well. However, these people were generally responsible for relatively simple cleaning and transportation. Such low-level work. It is obvious that Haihan's colonial work in the local area has been quite effective and he has begun to tame the indigenous people to work for him.
On the way to visit the farm the next day, Li Bo took the initiative to mention the matter to Li Dou on the carriage. Li Dou smiled and said: "Actually, there are quite a lot of local indigenous people working for us. Among them, we can train and get our Only trustworthy people can work in the guest house, and the income of these people is much higher than that of their compatriots who still live in the mountains and forests.”
In the early days of Kaohsiung's development, several hardline tribes that were in tit-for-tat confrontation with Haihan in the surrounding areas were either wiped out completely, or they had fled to the mountains to the east to stay away from the Haihan colony, so those who remained The relatively mild tribes had little resistance under Haihan's coercion and inducement, and gradually became Haihan's vassals.
The labor force provided by these less civilized indigenous tribes is also cheaper than that of Han immigrants. Employers only need to provide them with food, wine, sugar, oil, ironware, medicine and other materials as wages. Some smaller tribes, because a large number of their members entered Kaohsiung to work for the Haihan people, simply took the initiative to move out of the mountainous area and relocated to the settlements planned by the Haihan in Kaohsiung.
The first destination that Li Dou took Li Bo and his party to visit was the officially operated collective farm of Haihan. Currently, more than 5,000 acres of grain crops are planted in its jurisdiction, making it the main grain-producing area in Kaohsiung. The farmers working on this collective farm are almost all Han Chinese immigrants or Han immigrants who have applied for naturalization, but there are not many indigenous people working here.
"Growing food is a technical job. The farming technology of the local indigenous tribes is still at the level of slash-and-burn cultivation, so our collective farm only employs a small number of indigenous people as porters." After arriving at the farm, Li Dou explained the place to Li Bo employment structure.
Due to language and cultural barriers, it is difficult for the local indigenous people to learn more complex technical tasks in a short period of time, and they are selfish and do not want the indigenous people to master advanced food growing technology. This will only greatly reduce the dependence of the indigenous tribes on Haihan. It may gain gratitude from the other party in the short term, but in the long run it will not be conducive to Haihan's control and transformation of the local population structure. Therefore, on farms that produce food crops, indigenous people are basically only responsible for some menial tasks that have nothing to do with technology.
As for the planting areas of cash crops, there are no worries in this regard, because the sales and pricing power of cash crops are almost controlled by Haihan. Even if the indigenous people learn these planting techniques, it will be difficult to develop related industries on their own. What's more, most cash crops will undergo further processing in various workshops before they appear on the market. This is a condition that indigenous tribes cannot meet.
Rice is still the most widely planted food crop in Kaohsiung. Two crops of rice can be grown and harvested here every year, and the yield per mu is basically on the same level as rice fields on Hainan Island. In addition to meeting the needs of the local people, the rice in Kaohsiung Port also needs to take into account the food supply of Penghu, Miaoli and Jilong Port in the north. Even the Dutch port of Damuan occasionally purchases small quantities of food from the nearby Kaohsiung Port for emergency emergencies.
"Your Majesty, rice cultivation may seem simple, but from plowing, raising seedlings, and transplanting rice to the later stages of weeding and insecticide, irrigation and drainage, fertilization, harvesting, drying, and screening, there are corresponding technical standards in our country. So our country's rice The yield per mu will be much higher than that of other countries.”
Li Pu was walking on the field, and in front of him was the rice planting area with criss-crossing roads. Listening to Li Dou's explanation, he felt quite emotional. Of course, North Korea also has a large area of rice cultivation, but due to geographical and climatic conditions, it can only plant one season of rice every year. Unlike Kaohsiung Port, it has now completed the planting of the second season of rice in the second half of the year and will be able to plant it again in two months. It’s a harvest.
If North Korea can plant two crops of rice every year, it will definitely play a significant role in improving national power. Li Ming was about to ask Li Dou about this, but the other party seemed to have anticipated his question and said proactively: "This two-crop rice planting method is only suitable for places farther south. The Jiangsu and Zhejiang areas of the Ming Dynasty are probably the north of the two-crop rice The boundary is over. Your country is located in the north and does not have such natural conditions.”
Li Pu could only sigh silently in his heart. He secretly thought that it was not that easy to become prosperous through farming. What Haihan could do, his own country may not have the conditions to achieve it.
Li Dou continued: "With stable food output and sufficient official food reserves, people will know that they will not fall into famine, and people's hearts will naturally be stable. Your Majesty, please look at the row of columnar buildings in the north, which are used locally. A granary for storing rice.”
The granary didn't seem big from a distance. After a while, when he got closer, Li Bo discovered that its volume was far beyond imagination. At least one hundred thousand kilograms of rice could be loaded into one warehouse.
Li Bo couldn't help but asked with some doubts: "I heard Mr. Li say before that the current local population is only a few thousand people. Even if the population of other places on Taiwan Island is added, it is probably only about 10,000 people. The size of the granary in Kaohsiung Port is so large , should far exceed the demand for food consumption, right?" Li Dou explained: "To be honest, the food stored here is not only for the needs of the people of Taiwan, but a considerable part of it is for the wartime reserves of the coalition forces from Sanya this year. Going north to support the war in your country, in order to save operational time and sea transportation capacity, most of the military supplies are shipped from Kaohsiung Port and Dinghai Port. Once a war breaks out on the southeast coast of the Ming Dynasty, this will be one of the logistics bases of the Haihan Army. 1. ”
Li Bo nodded and said: "I see, but when I came down, I looked at the pier of Kaohsiung Port and there didn't seem to be many shore defenses. Mr. Li is so confident in the local defense?"
Li Dou smiled and said: "Your Majesty, you are careful! Kaohsiung Port currently does not have many military functions. Maritime defense mainly relies on the navy stationed at Magong Port in Penghu. However, the potential threats near Kaohsiung Port have actually been cleared up relatively cleanly. There are really The armed forces capable of attacking this place will not choose this place, because this is just an agricultural area. Even if it is captured, it will not cause too much damage to our country. It has no value as a target of military strikes, but will have to bear a huge burden for it. Big operational risk ”
After Shibazhi was completely wiped out, the closest hostile force to Kaohsiung Port was the Spanish in Manila. At the beginning of this year, the Haihan Army sent troops to Luzon Island and expelled the Spanish from Manila Bay. It is also unlikely that the other side will send troops from the South China Sea, 2,500 miles away, and bypass Luzon Island to attack this Haihan colony with limited military value.
Of course, even if the Spaniards make such a ridiculous decision in a daze, they can easily fall into a situation where they cannot come and go. Not to mention that the naval fleet stationed in Penghu can reach Kaohsiung within one day, even if the Fujian Navy sets off from Xiamen and rushes to Kaohsiung after receiving the alarm, it will not take two days. Unless the intruders burned, killed, and looted on the shore and then retreated immediately, they would not be able to escape from Kaohsiung as long as they were in love with the war.
Taking the risk of losing a fleet to attack Kaohsiung Port, the Spaniards, whose current strength has been severely damaged, cannot afford to play such a big game. Therefore, although the risks raised by Li Bo exist objectively, the actual threats they can pose are quite limited, and Li Dou has never worried about the invasion of foreign enemies.
However, Li Bo lacked understanding of the international situation and geographical environment, and he could not understand all of Li Dou's explanations, and he was still somewhat dubious. When he was at Dinghai Port in Zhoushan, he witnessed with his own eyes the Haihan Donghai Fleet stationed there. The sense of security brought by strong ships and powerful guns was much more reliable than Li Dou's verbal explanation. However, Kaohsiung Port has neither large-scale coastal defenses nor a fully-equipped fleet stationed there. It seems that it is not as concerned about defense as Dinghai Port.
In addition to the fact that Kaohsiung Port is relatively close to Magong Port and the Fujian Navy Station, if there is any hidden reason, it is probably that the chief officer of Kaohsiung Port, Li Dou, is a civilian and is not keen on military construction. As long as funds are available, the first thing to consider is to improve the local industrial institutions and expand the scale of production. As for military engineering, I am afraid that in Li Dou's mind, it is not as important as digging a few canals.
The construction of granaries in Kaohsiung to store large amounts of grain to meet needs during wartime or other emergency situations was also an arrangement made by the Executive Committee and was not Li Dou's own plan. The construction and maintenance costs of these large granaries are not small. It would be difficult to complete such a large project if we rely solely on local finances.
Li Dou's own governing philosophy is to gradually develop local agriculture into a characteristic economy, preferably unique among Haihan's overseas colonies. The current title of "National Agricultural Demonstration Zone" has proven that the future of this road is bright. However, the recent population growth in Kaohsiung Port has been slow, making it difficult to organize more labor to cultivate new farmland and expand the scale of agricultural production. Li Dou hoped that by receiving Li Bo's visit to Kaohsiung, Li Bo would realize Haihan's advancement in agricultural development, and then find opportunities to export local agricultural products and agricultural development models to North Korea.
Of course, after Li Dou came into contact with Li Bo, he found that his goal was not so easy to achieve. This was not because Li Bo had any aristocratic airs or lacked interest in agricultural-related matters, but because the prince knew nothing about farming. There are very few, and it is difficult for them to be impressed by Haihan's agricultural level. For example, when talking to him about the grain yield per mu, Li Bo had no idea what the normal yield of an acre of land was, so it was difficult to be shocked after hearing the local rice yield per mu reported by Li Dou.
On the contrary, large buildings with strong visual impact like granaries can make Li Bo feel the development of local agriculture. Li Dou felt that if Li Bo had come two months earlier or two months later to catch up with the rice field harvest, the scene of mountains of grain might have had a similar effect.
After wandering around the farmland for more than half an hour, Li Dou took Li Bo to visit the residential area of the collective farm. The gap in status and treatment is reflected here. Almost every household of Hai-Han employees has a small courtyard, and those with larger households may even live in two or three courtyards; Han employees who have not yet been naturalized live in much more crowded places. Several families can live in one courtyard; as for the indigenous employees who are provided with food and accommodation, the dormitories they live in are even more crowded, with at least six to eight people in each room.
"Such a differentiated arrangement is also to give employees the motivation to make progress. As long as they work hard, they will all hope to join our country and enjoy national treatment." Li Dou took the initiative to explain the purpose of this arrangement to Li Bo.
Li Bo understands this very well. It's not like the landlord's relatives' helpers, permanent workers and temporary employees. There must be differences in treatment. However, he does not think that local aborigines who look obviously different from Han people and cannot even speak Chinese can also become Hai-Han citizens. Otherwise, how can they abide by Hai-Han laws after naturalization?
Li Dou didn't expect that the issue Li Bo was thinking about was so biased. He took him around the residential area and introduced him in detail to the relevant supporting facilities, such as canteens, bathhouses, public security, medical institutions, etc.
(End of chapter)